Users of information technology increasingly use electronic calendar systems and applications to manage their appointments, meetings, events, and other scheduled activities through various forms of calendar entries. Users access these systems through computers, mobile phones, tablets, and other electronic devices.
Electronic communications have almost completely supplanted telephonic, written, and in-person methods of coordinating meetings. This increase means that users spend increasing amounts of time converting between electronic communication systems, such as those that facilitate correspondence via electronic message (such as e-mail or social networking platforms) and electronic calendar systems.
Increasingly, services are being offered that perform rudimentary integration between electronic communication systems and electronic calendar systems, especially in a business context. Examples of these systems include MICROSOFT OUTLOOK and EXCHANGE, GOOGLE Calendar and GMAIL, ZIMBRA Calendar and Mail, and ZOHO Calendar and Mail.
One conventional method for performing this integration includes providing a link or button to access the electronic calendar system from the electronic communication system, and vice versa. Another method provides the ability to “drag and drop” an email message into the calendar system, which allows the user to specify that the message contains event details, fill in those details manually, then include the body of the message in the calendar appointment.
Conventional methods are fraught with human transcription errors, as they require the user to change contexts between the electronic communication system and the electronic calendaring system to complete scheduling tasks.
Conventional methods are optimized for creating and maintaining a schedule for a single person, whereas most calendar scheduling involves multiple participants and multiple options. For example, a user may receive an email from a coworker asking for a meeting, with a list of times included. In a conventional workflow, the user must 1) Switch to the electronic calendar application, 2) verify each of the times to see which are suitable, 3) switch back to the email application to send a response, 4) wait for his coworker to confirm one of the times, 5) switch back to the calendar application to finally add an appointment to his schedule, 6) remind his coworker of the meeting beforehand. This process can lead to lost productivity, unnecessary stress, transcription mistakes, double-booking appointment times, and missed meetings.
Electronic mail specifications do not provide for the ability for electronic messages to be modified after they are sent, which prevents electronic communication systems from offering dynamic messages that can change based on a user's interactions or other data sources.